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70 years after it was written, a poem goes viral

What started as a Facebook post on a local Farmers Insurance agent’s page has swept across Little League baseball fields nationwide. A photo of a sign bearing the poem “He’s Just a Little Boy” is now hanging at some 1,500 diamonds.

It’s all thanks to Joel McKinnon of McKinnon Insurance in New Philadelphia, Ohio. He posted the photo last year, and when he saw the great engagement it was getting, he alerted the Farmers Insurance Group Facebook page manager. After it was posted to the main page, people started asking if they could get a copy of the sign to hang at their park.

“Our next move was to make people aware of the signs being made and to see who wanted them. Farmers posted an application on their corporate page for "fans" to request a sign. More or less instantly the signs were "sold out" and we actually had received nearly 1,500 requests. Next thing you know our 500 sign project turned into 1,500.”

The photo of the sign—accompanied by a Twitter hashtag #EveryField—became a hit on Reddit, and the poem that Chaplain Bob Fox penned 70 years ago is now a part of viral culture—and a fixture at parks across America:

"I'm really proud of Farmers, because they didn't put their name in front of this. #EveryField doesn't link to Farmers’ website. It just gives people a chance to join collectively. They're not trying to get business out of this. They're just trying to send a message to the community."